to show you the blinding light
by MiddayFiddler
Summary: He wants Quentin back, but he doesn't know how. There are books, and movies, and tutorials on sketchy websites, and none of them helps. On the third day he remembers that no one taught him to read. Eliot is asleep, so he goes to his Not-Sister. He used to love her and dread her, but this body doesn't know any of it.


The body is good. Light and squishy, not creaky and pointy. It makes less sounds. It moves easier, telling a finger to move makes it move. Not like before, when the bodies were borrowed and not happy about it.

Did it work, someone says in the distance. It's a voice he knows. It resonates on his eardrums and inside his head. It's not pleasant. The voice is strained, as if it was gripped by someone about to sink into its throat. That's good. Blood is warm and he is cold. Naked. The floor is stone and not the living kind.

He opens eyes. They don't work as well as the fingers. Things are hazy and shadowy. Not many things. Movement in the corner of the left eye. A veil of hair. They are pretty, curly and soft and smelling like vanilla latte with sprinkles. He raises a hand and touches them. It's good and it's almost too much.

It's okay, the hair says. It's not pleasant. He likes silence. He's not sure what okay means. Sometimes mortals make sounds and they don't mean anything, and sometimes they mean more than they have letters. No letters, sometimes - just sounds. When they are sad, when they are happy. When they die.

He had a friend once; he was warm and very, very sad.

We will not hurt you, the hair says and it has a face and hands. A hand is on the shoulder. It is so warm it burns. He knows the face, but it's like a crumble of a memory and not scary, not at all. He raises the hand to touch it. The things that are not scary are allowed to touch. The hand is small and a bit brown and looks very, very soft. The face is soft, too. He is never allowed soft things. The face makes a sound, like a cough, but the happy kind.

Can we play, he asks. His voice is weird; like a squeak of the castle's rusty hinges. A bit like a mouse trapped and made to speak human language. Can we get a mouse. If it spoke I would keep it alive.

We will play with you, the other lady says. He knows her. The Sister was in her body, before. He doesn't want to think of her. She was a dream, at first, so soft and pretty and alive and his, and then she was fear and dark and pain and destruction. We have talking rabbits, someone says in the distance and someone else shushes them. There are many people and white light coming through big, open windows. He is not afraid.

Hide and seek, he says, and then Orange juice, and then What is this body, there is no one else, my thoughts are only mine.

We made you a body, the soft lady says. She smiles at him. The new body feels warm around the chest, as if it had a candle inside and it could be lit. Quentin did that sometimes. There is no Quentin anymore.

He sits up, then stands up. The body is weak, so fragile it seems his bones will shatter any moment. His limbs - and he tries calling them his and it's good, because his was only shame and eternity - his limbs are short and sticky. His feet are bare and the cold floor feels nice. Good things about this world - quiet, coffee, floor tiles. Look, sister, sister. The gods are dead, their blood spilt on the ancient stones. On his fingers; warm.

Quentin hated the killing. And he was hated by the gods, but - why - could bear not to be hated by Quentin.

Is this my new prison, he asks.

The soft lady says No, but she speaks with her eyes, too, and he knows. He is angry. He wants to see the red of blood and flesh and organs in this weird light world - not the soft lady, because she is nice and he can save her for later-

Nothing.

The man whose body he borrowed is not angry.

The man - Eliot, Eliot, Eliot - does not break or shatter things or him - he's not a thing, he sometimes forgets. Just sits, or lies, or sometimes stands twisted like weed trying to grow in the cracks of Blackspire. Watches as the people make him wash his new body. Listens to him screaming in his powerlessness. He had been stolen from once again. He throws the body against the wall and a window and a mirror that cracks at last, but his cuts and bruises hurt him and that is not what he lock the door and tie him to a chair and to a bed. They say they are sorry and repeat that and touch his face and his arms softly. He does not know what it means. He hates the body. It feels hunger and pain and weird tingling where their skin touches his. That one is pleasant. He doesn't tell them. He scratches the wooden bed frame with his fingernails until there are bloody ridges.

The man whose body he borrowed brings him donuts.

They are glazed with pink and green and filled with jelly. There is a whole box of them. Eliot doesn't take any. Just unties him and opens the box on his lap. Watches him, like he has been watching since his body woke up. It is a trap, he knows, but his body craves sustenance and sugar and fat. One of the donuts has tiny silver stars on it.

When this body dies, you die with it.

Eliot has a voice and it sounded different from inside his head. He has purple smudges under his eyes and stinks of something sour. Being human comes with many smells and sounds and feelings trapped inside their frail ribcages. Fragile, uncomfortable, temporary.

Bullshit, he says. The word feels good rolling off his tongue, popping through his small lips. He says it again, and again.

Fuck you, says Eliot's face. He's learned well, and quickly. Humans really were created to gods' image. The donut is filled with blackberry jelly. Sugar in the glazing is burning on his tongue.

What do you want, he says. He puts fingers into the mouth. Jelly and dirt and splinters of broken nails. He chews on a joint of a finger until it throbs with a dull pain. It's interesting, the pain. He doesn't want to talk.

Eliot's voice sounds like crumbling stone, like spine shattered on gravel. Listen, listen. The pain gets sharper. Blood is on his tongue and it's weird, a sweetener and a circle closing. Can you get him back.

More donuts, he says. He ate them all. A silver star is stuck in the gap between the front teeth. Quentin would like it. Would praise him, even. That felt good. Bodies need food to live, he said and there was Eliot in his eyes. Living is good, sometimes. Can you, can you. You are a god.

Steps are coming near; one of the human-like blurs who have names and bleed and who were scared of him and are no more. It feels - somehow.

Were, he says. He is not sure of things anymore, but language and time change only within their confines. Fuck you, he wants to say, because it's nice in his throat, but his lips form otherwise. There is no fight left in him. He's cold, so cold.

Eliot smiles and it doesn't look anything like what he saw in the mirror, then.

He wants Quentin back, but he doesn't know how.

There are books, and movies, and tutorials on sketchy websites, and none of them helps. On the third day he remembers that no one taught him to read. Eliot is asleep, so he goes to his Not-Sister. He used to love her and dread her, but this body doesn't know any of it.

She looks at him through the steam of her coffee cup. She agrees, but her eyes are empty and a bit scary and looking somewhere over his head. She always leaves the room when he starts hating everything all over again. He doesn't understand the connection and knows ther

She teaches him to read with the newspaper headlines. There are words he doesn't know and she doesn't explain. Sometimes she forgets about him. Sometimes she pours them both whiskey that tastes of dead skin. Once she brings a shrunken head and holds it over them as they struggle through border patrols and plastic straws.

It is past midnight and she smells of tequila and won't give him any, when she says, You are getting Q back. It's not a question, so he doesn't answer. She throws her head back and breathes out slowly. It sounds like something is rattling inside her throat. Her fingers are gripping an empty glass. They are white.

He reads, President, Census, Eclipse. He knows none of those words.

You were a god, she says. They might listen to you. She is talking to the ceiling. It is very high and painted white. He was not a god. He was nothing, and too much, and very, very existing. He was never listened to.

I don't know, his mouth says. He doesn't want them to. The body seems keen on making him human, putting thoughts into his head and into his throat. It is defeating. He wants to tell the Not-Sister he will bring Quentin back, unharmed and tomorrow. He doesn't want to, at the same time. He throws the newspaper on the floor. It doesn't help, so he stands up and knocks off the chair. It doesn't help. He screams. That helps, a little.

Hey, the Not-Sister says. Hey. It's okay. All of them say that a lot. Everything is always okay. We will not get mad, she says. I mean, Eliot will be sad, we all will be sad, but it's fine, you know? We said our goodbyes. Did they? He didn't.

I see, she says, even though there is nothing to see. I see.

She stands up and puts her arms around him. His body is short. The head rests on her chest, where heart and lungs are. He screams into it and then hears the pulse of blood and heartbeat and stops. It's good. Alive.

We will try, she says very, very silently. He doesn't say anything. He counts the beats of Being human, even though no one taught him to count.

The first time he leaves the Inside, it rains.

Eliot makes him put on a coat that is bright green and rustles with every movement. The raindrops fall on his head and drip on his face and hands. It's unsettling. Like it's attacking him, and soothing him, and also just existing and not caring about him. There are people and they don't look at him and everything is smelling of when the world was young and new.

They go to a market of some sort, in a house that is big and dark. There is a lot of people and they all seem to see through him. Eliot has a wrinkle between his eyebrows. He buys some roots and dead birds and a very dirty glass jar filled with water and what looks like nail-clippings in exchange for many shiny gold coins. Eliot mumbles something with bullshit and Baba Yaga in it and it's not for his ears, but he hears it anyways. He gets a plastic bag to carry, and a sweet cake on a paper tray, and a pat on a head from the cake seller. There is noise everywhere. It feels really good, somehow, like he was alive and living was a good thing.

Then they get to the Library and it's not good anymore.

He remembers. The corridors are narrow and the light hurts his eyes. There is a faint smell of metal and blood. Eliot is holding his hand like he wanted to break every single bone inside his fingers. Eliot remembers, too. Their fingers are sticky from the sweet cake and he knows something is wrong. It is silent here. In silence there is no way to ask.

There is a man with the skin of the same colour as the new body, and a pale small lady. Everything is pale here. Not like the Inside, where things are white and silver and made of light, sometimes. You shouldn't have brought him here, the man says, but the man and Eliot are speaking with their eyes and that is not what he means. There are words on the pale walls and he reads them, letter by letter, and tries to remember them to tell Not-Sister later. She will praise him. He is good today.

He wasn't good the last time he was here.

The letters are large, thin and sharp. Someone is shouting - at Eliot, probably, because he is shouting back. Eliot lets go of his hand, only to stand in front of him. MENDI, he reads before there is a back in front of his eyes and he cannot read anymore. It feels weird. Things that are in his way are to be dealt with, dead and gone. He remembers hands, many, many hands and none of them his own. The memory of blood stings inside his nose. He lifts his hand and buries his fingers into Eliot's soft coat. He has fingers. They are no one else's.

It's okay, Eliot says amidst shouting about Quentin and water and destiny and places with no return. He knows what it means now. It feels like being tucked into a warm blanket in a room no one can get into. He doesn't know the word for it. He wishes he had all the words in the world.

The shouting stops. He looks from behind Eliot. The man and the pale lady are not looking at him. There is nobody else. He knows they were talking about him, even though they never said his name. He doesn't have one. Eliot is holding books, big and heavy, that smell like pickles. NG, he finishes reading. There are steps in the distance, loud, quick, shaky. He understands.

They are afraid of me, he says.

No, Eliot says. It's a lie. They shouldn't be, he corrects himself. It's still a lie, but a nicer one.

The books that smell of pickles are written with words he doesn't know. Eliot is holding them like they were his own heart and would never get another one. His mouth feel like milk that went bad and thick.

You made me only to bring Quentin back, he says.

Eliot lies.

He doesn't leave the Inside after that.

He asks Not-Sister to give him a name, but she has a day of remembering bad things. She gives him a cup of milky coffee instead.

He cuts his hand to find out if it's real and his. It hurts a lot. The nice lady returns. Her face is grey. He throws many things at her. He wants Quentin. Quentin was his friend. He wants to not be anymore. He eats ice cream and it's better. Then it's not.

He is angry and he doesn't know why. He tears all the newspapers Not-Sister gave him. They are useless. He will never know all the words. He will never know the words that bring back Quentin. He will never turn into a big, smelly book that Eliot can hold like that. He gets tired and wants to hold Eliot's hand. Eliot is not here.

Can I have Quentin's body, he asks the nice lady and she is not nice anymore.

Eliot comes back at night.

It is very, very late. He doesn't understand time and cannot read clock, but he knows. He is sleeping and then he is not. The lamp by his bed has blue light. It makes Eliot look made of what candles are made of. He wants Eliot to lie to the bed and put him behind his back. He is warm, but he wants to be warmer. Eliot doesn't. That is not what he is for.

Quentin, Eliot says and it is time to go.

He sits up. He is wearing sleeping clothes with tiny ducks on them. His socks are fluffy and bright green. He doesn't want to change. His shoes are downstairs and he cannot tie the shoelaces. He doesn't want to go out to the rain and not come back.

I'm not going, he says.

Eliot is looking at him. He remembers what it was like to have Eliot's body. It felt weird to use the face, the voice, the long, long legs. Eliot looks like he doesn't know how to use them, too.

Water is dripping down his cheeks. It happened, before, in a black castle that was endless and vast and lonely. He forgot bodies do that. He catches the water in his mouth. It Is salty on his tongue. His eyes burn more than back when fairy flies made home inside his eyelids.

Hey, Eliot says and it's very, very soft. Eliot takes his hand into his own and looks at him. The door open.

Quentin is smiling. He is a bit blurry and a bit blue in the lamplight. He is wearing Eliot's purple dressing gown.

Hi, Quentin says. Quentin's voice is like a pillow made of a cloud and he understands the concept of dreaming.

Quentin sits on his bed. He can feel his warmth, and the fraction of their skins where they touch on the back of his hand. There is a light that is not from the blue lamp and that he cannot see and it's still blinding. It is nice. His chest hurts and it's a good hurt.

Do you want to stay with us, Quentin asks. All his words are lost. Quentin doesn't seem to mind. He puts his face of salty water on Quentin's shoulder. Eliot puts his arms around them both. He thinks the invisible light comes out from his eyes.

I don't have a name, he says, after a time that is both long and not real.

What do you want your name to be? Quentin asks.

He hears Eliot say I love you very, very quietly, more thought than a sound. He doesn't know what love means. He will ask him, later. There will be answers. There will be time.

Quentin, he says and it is good, good, everything is good.


End file.
